Against over 18,000 ongoing projects registered in the country, the state has registered nearly 12,900 ongoing projects with the Maharashtra Real EstateRegulatory Authority. Of these, 9,176 projects have already been issued RERA certificates.

The RERA officials had earlier told TOI that there were nearly 15,000 ongoing projects in the state. “Even as the July 31 deadline has crossed, the state continues to register these projects after levying penalties. However, after August 16, each case will be heard independently and the fine will be levied accordingly,” sources from the office of MahaRERA said.

Of the 36 states and Union Territories in the country, 24 states have already put in place RERA, for which either a permanent or an interim regulator has been appointed. “But registration is yet to pick up pace in most states,” the sources said.

Sources from the Centre said over 500 projects have been registered in Haryana, 1,500 in Madhya Pradesh, 1,150 in Karnataka and nearly 1,800 in Uttar Pradesh so far.

However, activists have bigger concerns. “Our main fear as of now is how the regulator will track all ongoing projects in the state that are not registered,” said Abhay Upadhyay, president of Fight for RERA, the nationwide home buyers’ body that campaigned for the law.

“We suggest that regulator should invite for complaints/information from all those homebuyers whose projects are not yet registered under RERA. On the basis of these complaints/information, promoters of unregistered projects should be penalized suo motu by the regulator,” Upadhyay added.

S Shankar, an activist from Fight for Rera, said they have got an interim regulator appointed only last month. ‘The registrations are slow,” he said while commending Maharashtra for appointing the regulator on time.

It was on March 2016 that the landmark Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Act was cleared in the Parliament. It aims to protect the interest of home buyers in the country.

In Maharashtra, the deadline for registering ongoing projects was July 31 this year. Without registration, developers can’t market their residential or commercial properties. Violation of RERA guidelines invited a penalty of up to 10% of the project cost. After the July 31 deadline, a penalty of Rs 50,000 was levied in the state. The penalty amount was increased to at least Rs 1 lakh till August 16, after which it was decided to deal with each case independently.

RERA sources said they had received over 50 complaints and on case-to-case basis, they are levying a penalty varying from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh. The MahaRERA website saw registration of 10,852 ongoing housing projects across the state as the official deadline came to an end on July 31. Pune district topped the number of registrations with 2,908 (26.8%) applications.

The sources said if any promoter fails to register as per the Act multiple times, he/she shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term that may extend up to three years or with fine, which may extend up to a further 10% or with both.

Revision of projects from Sept 1

A new circular issued on July 17 mentions that realtors can make correction in documents even after the digitally signed certificate is issued by RERA.

As per the circular, besides updating project details within 90 day period, correction/revision in projects has been introduced for certain areas for both realtors and agents registered with RERA.

In this case, the promoter will have to make a separate request for revision/correction through MahaRERA portal, which will be available from September 1 and a fee of Rs 5,000 plus taxes will be applicable for this purpose. Only certain fields are allowed for corrections. These include promoter and project details, total building count, FSI and bank details, estimated cost.